The Modern Temper by Lynn Dumenil Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

The Modern Temper by Lynn Dumenil - Essay Example This stage of history is claimed by the author to have established â€Å"the central motifs that have shaped the modern American temper.† While she acknowledges how important the role is of World War I being a tool or process of making the ‘roaring twenties’ happen, Dumenil does not believe in the common knowledge which infers that World War I is hugely responsible for such an outcome on which various aspects of change in American society, politics, economy, and culture are embedded. To her, it seems that the main source points to the major events of the industrial revolution as well as the consequences of a rapidly industrialized culture within a capitalist society. This is to say that World War I serves only to polish the results in the overall image of progressive economy or the idea of prosperity which caused population to shift from rural regions to urban locations believed to possess centers of commerce and adequate employment to support good living standards. Among a number of trends which are quite vivid in her investigation of the 1920s, the expanding bureaucratic form of government is prominent yet somewhat notorious for yielding to excessive power which had stirred general distrust across the nation. By noting how a U.S. representative kept an argument about daylight-savings time in a wartime program, Dumenil demonstrates how federal laws are exercised even in handling petty matters of politics, sarcastically reacting â€Å"we might soon have laws passed attempting to regulate the volume of air a man should breathe, suspend the laws of gravity, or change the colors of the rainbow.† Alongside the increasing state of bureaucracy emerged urban liberalism and pluralism in America’s heterogeneous society. Coupled with a mass-consumer culture, this led to unequal distribution of wealth so that social movements which influenced different religious, ethnic, and cultural groups were